


summer; blossom

by backlit (cuimhl)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 08:19:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15311343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuimhl/pseuds/backlit
Summary: She likes it when they plan game nights to surprise Naruto, who still gets lonely despite everything, and she likes it when they all slipped into Sasuke’s barely-lived-in apartment for his birthday and he had to pretend to be annoyed. She likes all of that.But she likes this, too, maybe just a little bit more: quiet fields and sunlight, open palms, and Ino smiling at her from between a sweep of flowers.





	summer; blossom

**Author's Note:**

> how could I not include [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8inJtTG_DuU)

 

 

It strikes her out of nowhere, since realisations seem always to crash into her sideways, that maybe it’s about time she gets married.

This thought dives at her like a bird, on a calm summer evening when she’s walking Ino home after dinner out—a gentle meal, some Uzushiogakure soup special artfully plated with that dash of spice Ino likes. Not too expensive either and open till late, which about satisfies all the conditions of which they require, given Sakura’s aggressively unpredictable schedule.

With Ino’s hand in her own and the evening air slowing to a patient swirl, subdued and feathersoft against their ankles, Sakura spends one moment watching Ino’s animated face as she retells an office misadventure and the next, _if this is what the rest of her life looks like—_ Sakura’s breath stutters.

She doesn't know what to do, but her mouth starts moving without her instruction. “Hey, Ino, I just _—_ remembered,” she coughs out, the words disorderly and fractured, “I might’ve left something back at the clinic.”

She winces as Ino’s face falls. She’s good at hiding it, because the small downturn of her lip is almost imperceptible, but there’s always something softer about Ino when they’re together, rather than at work or in the middle of an interrogation.

This summer night, Sakura is a burning bush wreathed with a lemon-scent so volatile that the thought of Ino has set her alight. Guilty, she excuses herself with an apologetic kiss that startles right through her like a flame to a wick, and watches Ino walk a few steps home alone before turning around, heart thundering through the thicket of her ribs like a startled deer.

She wants that. She wants all of this, for the rest of her life.

It’s too much to think about, so Sakura does what she does bes _—_ braids her thoughts around work again, reshuffles the consultation schedule for the next day, and starts flying through herbal treatments to keep her mental acuity. The list is long, but it is still finite _—_ she finishes reciting it three times through before she finally reaches her own apartment, and knows that she’ll have a hard time getting to sleep tonight.  


 

 

  


The first time Ino had brought Sakura to meet her parents after they started officially dating, Sakura had made a total fool of herself. There had been a pleasant amount of surprised gasps and warm greetings as Ino’s parents welcomed Sakura to lunch, saying how lovely a surprise it was that Ino was dating Sakura now, that they were so close and Ino was so happy, and they could trust Sakura with anything. Shaky, Sakura had agreed with a stammered laugh, and stayed mostly silent throughout lunch with the exception of her wooden responses to their patient questions.

What was sakura doing nowadays? Oh, still logging hours in the public clinic, of course. Did she have plans to stay, or expand? Maybe retire from active practice, to pursue the research she had mentioned enjoying a few years ago? Not sure yet, well, that’s fine. There was plenty of time for everything, and Sakura was sure to be capable of everything she tried her hand at.

Then the conversation turned to Sakura’s relationship with Ino, and there had been a conspiratorial smile on Ino’s father’s face when he leaned in to ask, “So, why do you like my daughter so much, Haruno Sakura- _san_?”

And, blank-faced and so overcome with relief that the lunch had gone smoothly thus far, Sakura had broken into a monotone recitation of the last passage she had penned in her casual research notebook: “Agave, century plant. Flowers once after many years, and then dies. This phenomenon is called being ‘monocarpic'.”

“How _—_ nice,” Ino’s parents had exchanged a look of confused amusement. “Did Ino foist off a reading list about flowers on you? There’s no obligation to take over the family florist if you don’t want to.”

They had been trying to make Sakura feel better with a bit of humour, but it had only made Sakura’s face burn up in embarrassment. She couldn’t think of anything to say, and she could feel Ino’s mild mortification (and acceptance, but that was a given) burning through the distinctive shape of her chakra.

“It means,” Ino had jumped in as a last-ditch effort to save her, “that Sakura thinks she’s monocarpic. We’re in love, and were always meant to be. I helped her flower for the first time.”

It hadn’t been as terribly convincing as explanations go, what with Sakura’s humiliating non sequitur. But in hindsight, Sakura supposes it was a prediction of sorts, an oracle’s foresight. Sakura has, indeed, flowered at Ino’s side, and they’re growing to love each other in the mature way of people who have been hurt and frightened by the worst of each other, but have healed, and found that they fit together better for all the scars.

  


  


 

Because it is quite obvious, or at least it is to Sakura, that she cannot simply march up to Ino and propose that she marry her, Sakura decides that the best alternative is to meet with Ino’s parents in private and gain their approval, before approaching Ino as a responsible and mature girlfriend who has taken the first steps in providing for their nascent future together. It is very convoluted, and Naruto tells her as much over dinner.

“You’re thinking too hard,” he informs her. Unfortunately for him, the mouthful of ramen he has yet to chew both impedes the clarity of his pronunciation, and also serves to invalidate the significance of his sensible advice.

Naruto has mastered etiquette through the same kind of fervour with which he had bulldozed his way into every obstacle and emerged still fighting. In formal company and ambassadorial conferences, he puts everyone else to shame with untouchable grace that wreathes him in light, always the most beautiful point in the room. But with friends, and especially Team Seven, there's a reckless familiarity to him that has turned insufferably endearing over the years. It is, however, Sakura's own brand of obstinacy that blinds her selectively to Naruto’s little quirks.

“I am _not_ ,” Sakura replies pointedly now after swallowing her own bite of food. “This is how it has to work.”

“I really don’t think so,” Naruto insists. “You get kind of irrational when it comes to emotional things you don’t know how to navigate, or when there’s any emotional situation whose outcome really matters to you, but which you can’t predict well enough for your own liking.”

Naruto sounds suspiciously smart, but Sakura forges onwards. Fifteen or so years of dealing with his stupidity and cleverness in surprisingly equal measure have trained her to consign the evaluation of his objective intelligence to a coin flip. This time, she feels like it’s a negative. He’s just being difficult.

“No,” she says, “and that’s final. I didn’t drag you out so that you could pick away at my plans the same way you’ve grown accustomed to doing with Kakashi’s as his hokage advisor. I’m not senile in the least. All I need from you is to for you to act the part, and I’ll think up the strategy.”

“You’re calling Kakashi _—_ ”

“When I’m stressed, I say things I don’t mean.” Sakura cuts him off with a light punch to his upper arm, mind whirling. Which kind of strategy would work for this kind of thing? She could just arrange to have lunch with them after dropping by the Yamanaka florist, but it wouldn’t leave an impression. Everything has been so quiet lately, and Sakura used to love the quiet, but it is especially unsettling when she has to rely on her own emotional intelligence to treat sensitive topics with the kind of care that a surgical scalpel could irreparably wound.

To negate the embarrassing last attempt at meeting Ino’s parents for something ceremonial and important, Sakura knows that this one must be perfect. Never mind that she has had lunch and dinner and all manner of meals with Ino’s family an innumerable heap of times over the past few years; this, in her mind, is saliently one of the most important occasions in her life. The gravity of it is sobering. Sakura is convinced that she is right.

“Listen,” she leans in, and Naruto agreeably follows suit. “We’re going to stage a rescue attempt right on their doorstep…”

  


 

  


Naturally, it doesn’t go to plan. Sakura can’t quite say why she thought it would _—_ perhaps Naruto was right, though it pains her to admit it.

To save the humiliating details, Naruto goes overboard with his acting and their hired criminal-on-the-run, a compliant Konohamaru under henge, reveals his own hand. Ino is, regrettably, witness to the entire fiasco.

“What are you doing?” Ino hisses at her, looking bewildered. “My parents called me to ask what the commotion outside with _Sakura_ was all about, and I had to drop all my paperwork come up with an excuse that no one would believe just to stop them from coming out to check.”

Sakura feels guilty and ashamed, and she waves her hand at all the Naruto bunshin behind her in dismissal. Meekly, they dissipate with a few quick exhalations that sound still too loud for the fragile way in which Ino holds herself.

“I thought _—_ ” she begins, and stops. Tries again, “I thought I could _—_ I mean. I thought.”

Ino narrows her eyes like she has it figured out, and Sakura doesn’t doubt it; her skin prickles all over with cold and anxious trepidation, unsure if she’s glad she won’t have to explain herself or horrified that Ino knows what a dramatic failure she really is, years of dating jarring to an unfortunate end because Sakura is irredeemably incapable.

Instead of hazarding an inevitably accurate guess (“Is this a rescue pantomime, Haruno Sakura? In my own courtyard? With _Naruto_?” She can imagine how that would go down), Ino sighs slowly and looks contemplative. The silence is uncomfortable.

Taking a deep breath she marches forward, closing her fingers around Sakura’s wrist and pulling her in a loose grip towards the exit.

“What _—_ where are we going?”

“We’re going _somewhere_ ,” Ino replies, curt but warm, because she knows to be careful with Sakura’s wounded pride. “It’ll be okay, I promise. So just relax.” Then she orders Sakura to run, so she does. Ino could order her to do anything and Sakura would probably do it.

(Initially, Ino demanded that Sakura exterminate all the scary spiders in her new apartment, but after a particularly traumatic episode, Ino changed her mind and demanded that Sakura remove all spiders from her vicinity without ever having to kill another. Ino demands many things, but Sakura is more than willing to offer it all.)

  
  
  


 

The trees thin eventually, and Ino pauses at a branch. She proffers her hand for Sakura to take, fingers interlocked, and smiles softly. “I think you’ll like it,” is all she says, before she leaps forward and drags Sakura past a curtain of leaves and into an open clearing.

The glade ripples with sunlight, a celadon vase of blue, blue sky slow-drowned in gold. It’s above them, empty and vast and kind, but it’s so close Sakura might be able to touch it. Ino has a way of finding places like this, has a way of finding places that might’ve been folded from Sakura’s heart itself because they feel so much like coming home. At first, she’s a little jealous that Ino just squirrelled away this place without telling her all about it, but then supposes she can understand _—_ with how busy she has been and how avoidant, it’s a wonder Ino even considers her worth dating anymore.

“Better?”

Sakura whips her head around, and feels the air settle around her like a breath holding her still amidst all the motion that doesn’t feel overwhelming. The slow rustle of leaves, the sway of flowers, the touch of the wind that guides her shoulders down and hands loose. Ino has always known her best.

Konoha, with its spiderweb streets incrementally more cohesive than it was before Pein’s destruction, is nice when it’s all bustling and colourful; Sakura likes studying with friends in the library, likes pushing patients around and seeing their condition improve under her watchful care. She likes it when they plan game nights to surprise Naruto, who still gets lonely despite everything, and she likes it when they all slipped into Sasuke’s barely-lived-in apartment for his birthday and he had to pretend to be annoyed. She likes all of that.

But she likes this, too, maybe just a little bit more: quiet fields and sunlight, open palms, and Ino smiling at her from between a sweep of flowers.

She breathes, “Better,” and feels it flood her chest with knowing. This is better. This feels good.

Ino does that little eye-roll thing she does when she’s pleased with herself but embarrassed to admit it. She picks her way through the grass ahead, before carefully parting a place for herself and lying down.

Just to be immature, Sakura teases her, “You just crushed that patch of _Arctotheca calendula_ under your big butt.”

Ino pouts, but her eyes are bright as she watches Sakura fall back on her usual sense of humour. “Do you like _Arctotheca calendula_ better or my butt? Because I thought there was a pretty clear winner between the two.”

“ _Arctotheca calendula_ for sure,” Sakura grins, wicked. “But if you wore those awful jeans that made your butt look so cute more often, I might’ve reconsidered.”

Ino rolls her eyes for real, this time, and flaps her hand at Sakura. _Come join_ , her eyes are soft. So Sakura does.

The grass tickles her face as she lies down, unfurling and unwinding into the thick scent of earth and summer. at her side, Ino’s hand finds hers and they lock fingers, smooth and untroubling and in perfect tandem, always.

“How are you?” Ino whispers. Sakura hears the grass shift, and turns her head to find Ino already watching her, which she knew would be the case.

Sakura hums, and closes her eyes. Lets the feelings come to her first without trying to filter them for the sake of salvaging pride, or whatever _—_ Ino deserves more than all of that. So, “Stressed,” she admits.

“Confused, a bit weird. Like,” she lifts her hand and lets the sunlight flutter between her fingers. “Everything’s quiet, and I’m finally getting used to that. I like _—_ ” she twists onto her side, and pinches Ino’s nose affectionately. “I like this, with you. But sometimes, I guess I wonder if I’m allowed to want everything that I want _—_ if there’s not going to be another awkward, untimely war, if shinobi are allowed to be happy, if _—_ ”

She blushes, decides. “If,” she repeats herself softly, “you’ll even want to spend the rest of your life with me.”

“Oh,” Ino says.

Her mouth is slack, and her eyes are searching. Sakura doesn’t know what she’s looking for, so she shuts her eyes and waits for Ino’s reply. Under the sun, her skin prickles with nervous fear and the words fight their way back into her mouth, but she thinks it will be okay _—_ she wants to trust in that feeling, a liberty shinobi are not so often afforded.

“Well,” Ino begins. “Yes. Of course I do. Is that what today was all about?”

“In a way,” Sakura admits, but Ino can tell that Sakura doesn’t want to talk about it. Instead, she lets the quiet spread between them, and Sakura focuses on the hesitation in Ino’s answer.

“So, of course you do. But?” Sakura prompts, but keeps her eyes closed, and feels the word blow from her lips into the air like dandelion fluff.

“But,” Ino says slowly, “are _you_ sure you’d want to do the same? You’re already grander than everything expected of Tsunade- _sama_ ’s student. Everyone thinks that you’re amazing, and you _are_ . There are so many kind and wonderful things that you want to do for the world, and I’m just _—_ there are no more S-class missing nin to track down and interrogate. There’s no real foreseeable danger, because everyone is so committed to improving communication and relations between the Hidden Villages. If everything goes well in Naruto’s quest for peace, eventually my department will be redundant, and I’ll just be making bouquets or teaching at the Academy, or something. You’re destined for _everything_.”

“Yamanaka Ino,” Sakura draws out her name, slightly annoyed. “Are you asking if I will mind something so very trivial and untrue as you holding me _back_ in the future?”

Ino flares tangibly at her side, her shoulders rising defensively. “It’s a legitimate concern,” she argues. “And I don’t want to be a cliché, so obviously there are other things I’ve been thinking about, but this has really been on my mind. Of _course_ I want us to marry. I would give anything for us to have that. but I just wasn’t _—_ I didn’t want to assume that _—_ ”

“That I felt the same way,” Sakura finishes for her. She keeps her voice softer this time, understanding that Ino cares a lot about this. She doesn’t want to hurt her, especially when the conversation itself is about getting married and being happy.

She squeezes Ino’s hand, thinking. “I’ve never had to think about it,” she says. “I don’t love you because you’re smart, or ruthless at your work, or that you’re a war hero.”

“I know that,” Ino says quietly.

“I just love you because of what we are.”

“I know.”

Slowly, Sakura exhales. Feels the air and feels her lungs, listens to Ino beside her. “Okay,” she says. “Then you also know that we’ll work it out as we go.”

There’s a smile in Ino’s voice. “I know.”

“Yamanaka Ino, will you marry me?”

“I know,” Ino says, barely holding back her laughter as Sakura turns on her in mock outrage. “I,” she struggles to breathe under Sakura’s tickling, “ _know_. Yes! Okay? Yes. I will.”

“Okay,” Sakura’s heart feels impossibly huge and warm and full. “Okay.”

Bamboo plants can absorb thirty percent more carbon dioxide than other plants. Sometimes they don’t flower for years; sometimes, a single species of bamboo will flower at the same time, irrespective of location, sixty years later. It hasn’t been sixty years, because Sakura learned to flower in Konohagakure Academy when Ino first took her hand -- but Sakura always breathes easier when Ino is around.

The cool, sweet air balloons between her palms. Lighter, brighter: Sakura feels the sky lift and squeezes Ino’s hand at her side.

  
  
  


Ino suggests they spend the day there. “You’ve already taken the day off,” she reasons, “and this is nice, so let’s do it.” Sakura sees no reason to disagree.

They’re sitting in a comfortable quiet, enjoying the sunshine and each other’s company, when the time and place strike Sakura as perfect. Rolling over in the grass to look up at Ino, she asks, “Do you want to do it?”

“Do _—_ ” Ino pauses, braiding a handful of grass fronds growing by her toe. The cicadas pick up their song again. “Mind Body Switch?”

Sakura makes a sound of affirmation.

“Now?” Ino seems more confused than anything else. “I mean _ _—__ sure, but why?”

“Because we just had a _conversation_ ,” Sakura emphasises the word. “We talked about difficult, but necessary, things. And I feel really close to you right now, so I want to feel even closer.”

Ino understands _—_ Sakura can see it in the way her expression changes. Sharing the same mind feels a lot better than many things. On occasion it can be surpassed by physical intimacy, but on the whole, sakura loves with her mind. And she likes to talk things out until they make sense, and sometimes she’s lazy with her physical body and just wants to inhabit the same world as Ino without having to share it with anyone else, even if it’s just by breathing in the same air as someone just exhaled into five blocks away. So it makes sense.

Sakura closes her eyes, and listens to the sounds around her. The cicadas have hushed, and now there is only the gentle rhythm of Ino’s breathing interleaved with her own, the movement of trees and wind and, she imagines, the curl of clouds fanning across the deep oceansky. Her mind fills with that by which she is surrounded, and her thoughts spool outwards like unwinding thread. Slowly, she feels a light pressure, a patient touch against the curve of her mind. Slowly, slowly, slowly. Ino steps in and Sakura breathes out.

It’s a little different for everyone, Ino had explained before. “Everything sort of hinges on a lot of variables. For example, the depth of my relationship with them, the strength of our trust, or the shape of our dynamic in everyday conversation.”

She had taken Sakura’s hand in her own, and smiled in a distant sort of way like she was reliving the experience in order to explain it. “I have to embody some of that when I enter their mind, if I want to be recognised, or I have to suck in all my breath and fill that mindspace with cold air so that I’m just a shade or a faint footstep in the wasteland of all these thoughts I don’t want to touch, as if it will set off a bunch of alarms.”

This isn’t the first time they’ve done this _—_ Sakura gets a bit anxious sometimes, routinely overthinking really small things, and Ino always figures out how to help. Sometimes she has to tease it out of the mess in Sakura’s head, and sometimes it just means that Sakura needs someone she trusts to pull her mind over at the side of the road and calm it down from the inside.

So Ino cradles herself lightly in Sakura’s mind and breathes slowly for her. Does a bit of a spring cleaning with all the accumulated dust and forgotten to-do lists that clutter her frantic mindspace. Once she is settled, Sakura reclines in her own thoughts and meets her halfway.

 _Angelica?_   Ino catches the mental image that Sakura conjures of the pretty plant.

Pleased, Sakura feels their shared smile. _You taught me._ She’s proud of herself for remembering.

 _So you’re saying that it resembles me?_ In spite of her amusement, Ino scrunches up her nose, misunderstanding. _It looks like celery. I don’t even like to eat that._

Sakura shoves her in her mind. _That’s not what I meant!_ Her repository of Angelica facts rearrange themselves into a coherent list: _Angelica, great herbal tea, treats a range of afflictions. If you’re superstitious, it can enhance the warding power of a ritual bath. Breaks hexes. Traditional cure for so many diseases you wouldn’t even want me to list for you._

 _And?_ Ino is smiling now, shaped as an amorphous, abstract delight that rests against Sakura’s conceptual mind-shoulder. Sparkling and good-humoured, Ino is so lovely like this, so gently coquettish and quietly serious.

 _And,_ Sakura flirts back, _a cure for me, of me. Of every little worry and misdirected thought, every self-sabotaging attempt and perfectionistic blunder._

 _I make you better?_ There’s wonder in Ino’s disembodied voice. She seems faintly disapproving. _You’re fine. You’re blossoming more brightly than anyone who ever existed. You’re the most beautiful thing in my world._

It’s flattering to hear, and Sakura basks in it for a moment before laying her thoughts out like clean linen and watching them billow into the open air. _We make each other better_ , Sakura corrects. Her heart is so full that she knows Ino can feel it too, the inarticulate _something_ that warms her chest like a sunrise, coloured in degrees as everything turns to light.

  
  
  
  


“Sakura,” Ino’s mother beams. She smells like flowers and is dressed for summer, long hair loose at her back. “Come in. We were really excited when we heard you were coming for dinner.”

“Yeah,” Sakura coughs, her voice hoarse. She’s nervous again. Clearing her throat, she smiles. “Yes. Sorry I’ve been so busy; I really wanted to visit more often.”

She’s ushered into the house, and Ino’s mother shuts the door with a contemplative expression. “That time you came over with Naruto a few weeks ago,” She starts, and it looks like she’s trying to make sense of something logistically difficult.

Laughing awkwardly, Sakura pushes her gently away from the entryway. “That was a misunderstanding,” she explains smoothly. Her bouquet crumples sadly behind her back. “Where’s Ino?”

“In here,” Ino emerges from inside the house. She looks beautiful and she _knows_ it, giving Sakura a cruel wink in her sky-blue sundress with golden hair pinned back from her face, tumbling down to her waist.

“Hi,” Sakura swallows. Not knowing where to look or put her hands now, Sakura pulls out the bouquet with a flourish and bows to Ino’s mother. Embarrassingly, she laughs affectionately and kisses her on the brow.

“Come in, Sakura,” she says again. “We’ve actually got a little surprise for you tonight.”

“Oh, you didn’t _—_ you really didn’t have to do anything, Yamanaka- _san_ ,” Sakura flushes as she is pushed bodily into the dining room. “You didn’t _—_ ”

Her parents are sitting at the table, right next to Ino and her father. Everyone looks up when she enters, and smiles. The room glows.

“I _—_ ” Sakura feels her eyes sting. This is so _embarrassing_ . She’s acting like she doesn’t see her parents every _week_ . But everyone, both families all brought together at dinner like it’s an everyday thing, like they’re already one family _—_ which, admittedly, is basically _true_ but Sakura didn’t dare to hope for it too much _—_ is just a lot, all at once. She cries a little bit, and Ino laughs, tosses her hair over her shoulder as she reaches for a tissue and Sakura cries harder because she is laughing, too.

“Wow,” she says. “So I guess you all know that I’m here to ask for Ino’s hand in marriage?”

“Are you sure you’re in a state to do so?” Ino teases, and drops to one knee.

 

The world spins.

 

“Haruno Sakura, will you marry me on this fine night, because I already have a ring for you, so you should totally say yes right now?”

“Good thing I have one for you, right in my pocket,” Sakura laughs, the sound all watery as she nods and Ino slides a ring onto her finger.

Everyone is cheering, so obviously, they kiss.

  


 

**Author's Note:**

> written for the naruto gift exchange on tumblr! this was really fun to write, and I hope it has turned out to be an enjoyable read as well. thank you for all the comments on my older works -- I'll get back to you all in time, but for now, I hope you know that I'm incredibly, incredibly grateful for all the kind words.


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